Cursed

by Jamie Leigh Hansen

  Elizabeth gave her a bland look. “I said if I ever leave. You still got awhile to wait, kid.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Do you think it’s made any difference?” Alex shifted the truck into third.

  “She’s had a few days to see the material we’re studying. If she’s disturbed by it, she’s given no indication. I find that interesting.” Geoffrey twisted to check on the boxes in the back of the truck, then turned to face front.

  “Why?”

  “Teddy is telekinetic. Tommy collapses things with the skill of a demolition expert, which I hope he expands to building someday. There may be another entire layer to this situation than we’d first thought.”

  Alex frowned, though it fit with a niggling suspicion he had.

  “Since when have you had visions of the future, Alex? You’re a healer. Dreux turns to stone. Kalyss sees the past. I resurrect. Teddy moves things with his mind. But,” Geoffrey shook his head. “None of that is precognition. Whose gift is that?”

  “You think it’s Elizabeth’s gift?”

  Geoffrey looked at him. “Do you?”

  “No.” Alex shook his head with certainty and checked his mirrors. “I think knowing the future and not being able to stop it would defeat her. She needs hope to keep going, to face all she does. Those kinds of visions would discourage her, demoralize her.”

  “Yet, if two of the Raineses are gifted, it seems a safe bet that they all are.”

  “Then someone needs to take the first step. Open up and tell the truth before it’s too late. I bet you think that someone should be me.”

  Geoffrey’s lips twitched. “Definitely.”

  Alex shook his head and said dryly, “Keep pushing and it’s your gift I’ll expose first, old man.”

  The shrieks of eight excited children brought Elizabeth and Shelly running to the porch. The kids were jumping up and down as Geoffrey and Alex unloaded several large boxes from the back of Alex’s truck.

  Elizabeth’s brows drew together. It was an extremely fancy swing set. How much had that cost? She didn’t have cash in her account right now. She’d paid for the materials to replace the fence and bathrooms, but anything else would need to wait for the next phase of the project.

  Catching her look, Alex set his box in the center of a large patch of grass. Stepping through the crowd, he approached her, his expression cautious. “It’s a gift, Elizabeth.”

  She raised her brows. Some gift.

  “It’s from Geoffrey and me, to all the kids. It doesn’t belong on that tally I know you’re keeping in your head.” Though they talked quietly, the kids had hushed, as if knowing there was a possibility they couldn’t keep their surprise.

  Already she could sense eight little hearts ready to shatter. Elizabeth tried to whisper too low for them to hear. “It’s an entire play system, Alex.”

  Alex raised both brows. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, Elizabeth, but you’ve got enough kids here to start your own school.”

  Elizabeth pressed her lips together, blocking the smile pushing its way out. It sounded funny, but it was oh, so true. “I realize that, but—”

  Alex leaned toward her. Their faces were barely inches apart, as they had been the last time they’d shared the porch. “They deserve a playground, Beth Ann. Let them have it.”

  Elizabeth looked into the hopeful, pleading eyes of the children. How could she say no? She turned a wide, helpless gaze to Alex only to see a pleading pair of eyes from him as well. He really wanted to give them this gift.

  The swing set was for them and would have no impact on his relationship with her. There were never strings when it came to the kids. Which was a good thing. Geoffrey had been right. It was time to tell Alex the truth about her dreams. Whether Alex even wanted to speak to her after that, who knew? But as hard as she’d tried to stay away, nothing had worked. And keeping up a secret life on top of an overwhelming one was too much.

  Alex leaned closer, his eyes a bit anxious. “Pretty please?”

  She raised a teasing brow. “With chocolate syrup on top?”

  He glanced down her body and back up. “With chocolate syrup wherever you want it.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened and her breath caught.

  “Oh, wow.” Shelly stepped past them to the stairs. “A man covered in chocolate. Just how strong do you expect a woman from this family to be?”

  Heat flared across Elizabeth’s face and she looked at her niece in horror. “Shelly!”

  Shelly grinned and looked at Alex. “For the record, I don’t have a boyfriend. I like my chocolate with caramel.”

  Alex winked at her. “Good to know.”

  “Oh, good lord.” Elizabeth closed her eyes, holding a hand to her brow. Until Alex kissed her and her eyes flew open.

  “See, even Shelly likes the swing set.” He smiled hopefully, his eyes sparkling.

  “Alex … thank you.” What else could she say? Especially when she was melting inside.

  He kissed her again, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest in a full body hug. Would he still feel this way after she told him the truth?

  Afraid of the answer, Elizabeth resolved to wait until tonight before she told him. Surely that short of a delay wouldn’t hurt?

  Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to stand there and kiss him again. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and pushed away. “I think I’d better help with the directions before pieces are lost.”

  Candlelight flickered over the tapestry-covered walls until it appeared the scenes on them were continuously moving. On one, a woman lay with her head tossed back in wanton pleasure, long wavy dark hair billowing beneath her. Her arms encircled her lover, her fingernails digging long grooves into his muscled back as he licked and nibbled her throat.

  Only when the light flickered over the tapestry, exposing burgundy under-threads, did it show that small streams of blood trickled down her neck and the woman’s eyes were wide open in death.

  Moans filled the room with ancient chants to the Goddess of Lust. Upon sheets of satin and velvet, desperate forms twisted in a tense tangle of limbs and torsos, rubbing and stroking.

  Mouths kissed and suckled. Hands grasped, demanding and needy. Hips thrust, front to back, male and female, filling and being filled. They curved around each other, linked together, flesh sweaty and flushed and straining. Nothing was taboo. All that mattered was the rhythm, the pleasure.

  Their sexual heat and energy fed the woman at the center of the mass. Dugan paused beside the bed and watched his Goddess writhe beneath the pile. Only her green eyes could be seen as she pleased and was pleasured. Her beautiful eyes glowed, more vibrant than the deepest of the many gems filling her chamber. One slim hand, soft and unlined, extended from the mass of bodies and reached for him.

  Dugan bowed low and kissed her fingers, briefly drawing one into his mouth and tasting the juices on it. Pulling back, he smiled into her eyes. “I have a gift for you, my Goddess. Someone with the information you seek.”

  Her eyes narrowed in speculation. Slowly, Maeve rose from the sea of flesh, her lithe form undulating against the bodies pressed to her, her vibrant red curls and creamy shoulders becoming more visible until only one hand with long red nails curved around Maeve’s breast and blocked his view.

  Maeve stroked the hand, then pushed it behind her. “Do not tease me, pet. The punishment would be worse than you could bear.”

  Her smoky voice was pure temptation but they both knew the threat was not a light one. She was near fully restored to her power. She did not depend on him as she had even up to a few days ago. Her appetites had grown with each feeding until he could no longer sustain her. So he’d scoured the earth, finding young, lithesome fodder no one would ever miss to feed her unrelenting desires.

  Now only her thirst for vengeance waited to be quenched. As her impatience to destroy her enemies grew, so did her fury. As her strength and power expanded, Dugan became less a caregiver and mor
e a whipping boy, willingly offering his pain to ease her disappointment. Not that his willingness reduced the pain she inflicted. What would be the point of that?

  “My words are solid, Beautiful One. I have found someone who has the information.”

  Maeve’s plump red lips curved in pleasure. “Bring my gift to me, pet.”

  Dugan took a few steps from the cavern then returned pushing a small, stout man before him. Maeve sat on the edge of the bed, her legs curled to the side. The bodies writhed behind her, grinding and moaning and occasionally reaching for her, attempting to draw her back. Maeve absently stroked a delicate hand that curved around her waist, parting her legs for its exploration. Pleasure spasmed across her face before she narrowed her gaze at the man.

  “He’s a scribe, my lady, one of Abacus’s own. If any would know the answers to your questions, it would be him.” Dugan shoved the scribe to his knees. His Goddess deserved respect from lesser beings. “I questioned him, but he refused to say anything.”

  Maeve smiled wickedly and ran her tongue over her lips. “That’s because he is magically muted, my pet. Only Abacus can free his tongue. It’s a safeguard against the spilling of his secrets.”

  Dugan froze, staring at her. He’d really thought this would be the perfect answer, that he wouldn’t disappoint her once again. But studying her expression, Dugan realized she didn’t appear angry with him. Instead, her eyes sparkled and her lush mouth curved in a secretive half-smile.

  “All is well.” Maeve pulled a velvet robe around her and belted it loosely so that when she stepped from the bed she was exposed from one slim, shapely ankle to her glistening thigh. Trailing a manicured nail across the scribe’s shoulders as she circled behind him, Maeve leaned over his back and spoke softly against his ear. “There’s more than one way to learn your secrets, isn’t there?”

  The scribe suddenly paled, as if her knowledge surprised and terrified him. Standing in front of him again, Maeve trailed the sharp edge of her nail from his cheek to his chin, leaving a long welt in the wake of her touch, using her fingernail to prod his chin up until the scribe’s eyes met hers.

  “Yes, I know more than you thought.” Maeve smiled, her eyes darkening with power. “Now, how do you want to share this information? Shall we try the easy way and have you give it willingly? Or would you rather die for it?”

  Her green eyes sparkled with the hard edge of diamonds and her dark red hair seemed a mass of living strands. Her skin glowed with power. She was his Goddess. Dugan smiled, pride filling him at the sight of what his devotion had wrought.

  For a long moment, the scribe did not respond. Dugan watched the little man’s face, forcibly holding in his irritation at the man’s stubborn silence.

  When Maeve’s brows rose, the scribe met her gaze with a small, goading smirk on his lips. Dugan grasped the hilt of his battle-axe, but Maeve held up a hand to stay him.

  Maeve snarled. “Then you will die, little fool.”

  Dugan would have thought the man would tremble and beg, but his smirk never slipped. Not as Maeve bent to one knee before him. Not even when she opened her mouth and allowed her incisors to lengthen. Her green eyes tilted, the pupils becoming vertical slits, like a cat’s.

  Dugan smiled. Maeve turned, angled the scribe’s head and bit into his jugular like the first bite of a ripe, red apple. Unlike vampires, Maeve didn’t need blood to survive. She just liked it.

  Even with the pain, the scribe’s eyes didn’t fill with terror. Instead, his face settled into an expression of utter peace and contentment. Dugan relaxed infinitesimally. It was as it should be. Maeve was a Goddess worthy of reverence and worship.

  But when the scribe’s eyes filled with a blazing orange fire brighter than the flames of hell, Dugan knew something was wrong.

  The moment she’d felt his skin break against her fangs, even before the thick blood heated them from the inside, Maeve knew bliss. The salty copper was sharp and vivid on her tongue. A rush of pure joy she’d nearly forgotten.

  Maeve cradled the scribe in her arms, stroking the hair at the back of his head in loving gratitude for his choice of death before dishonor. His gift granted her this pleasure, one she hadn’t felt in centuries.

  The scribe could have chosen to record his knowledge on special scrolls for her to read. It was a scribe’s prerogative should he ever learn a secret he decided should be known. A secret too dangerous to be kept. The catch was, no scribe could be forced to write anything. They had to be willing.

  Which left only one way to gain the answers she sought. One secret key to unlock the door to a scribe’s mind. Only the oldest of those fallen knew how to find this key.

  It was held safe in the very last drop of the scribe’s blood.

  Maeve drank long and deep, certain each draw would be the last, until finally, it was. The key was in her mind and she used it to unlock the door to his. In an overwhelming, orgasmic tide, information rushed at her, filling all the starved corners of her brain.

  Formulas and sciences, art and histories, they filled her until she was full, bloated, ready to burst, though she knew she’d once held inside her more knowledge than even this.

  Humans were said to use only 10 percent of their powerful minds. Such a waste. The half-breeds of Angels and humans could use up to 50 percent.

  But now she felt it keenly. At the moment when her knowledge was the greatest it had been in eons, she finally realized how diminished she’d become.

  Once, she had reached for the pinnacle of knowledge. Then she’d fallen. And now her brain could not hold all that she was as well as all the scribe knew. His vast knowledge could break her completely.

  Desperate to gain the information she needed, Maeve entered the room behind the newly unlocked door of the scribe’s mind. Like a palace with a million rooms, the scribe’s mind was daunting. How did she find the one golden chest she needed? Room by room, she rummaged, throwing boxes out of her way, looking for that elusive one.

  Maeve’s heart strained, working inadequately despite all the blood she was consuming. The realization was slow and all the more horrible for it. She’d remembered how to free a scribe’s secrets, but she’d forgotten that to do so could kill her.

  It was a scribe’s nature to need nothing more than knowledge. That was his sustenance. They wasted no room on desires and wants, leaving even those parts of their minds free, like the pages of a diary waiting to be filled.

  Maeve’s mind was nearly full, but the flow of information didn’t slow. The devastating force continued until she was ready to explode. Telling her so much, but nothing she needed to know. Her fury exploded the pointless boxes around her and she shrieked.

  “No! I will have my answers.” With fierce determination, Maeve threw her question like a command. “Who trapped me in the tunnels?”

  Like a fact-seeking missile, the command arrowed through the rooms and hallways, blasting aside boxes of irrelevant data until only one remained.

  Rushed for time, knowing she only had seconds before the roar of information scrambled her brain, Maeve tossed open the lid and beheld her answer.

  As though it were in slow motion, the recorded memory blossomed before her. A tree-shrouded clearing at the edge of dawn. Her barrier trapping three fallen bodies: two men and a woman. One of the men was her only son, Kai, and the other was the bastard son of Maeve’s worthless human husband.

  The woman wasn’t important, except the bastard crawled to her and pulled her convulsing body lovingly into his arms. She would die for that alone. The image blinked and the light barrier fell. Someone’s heart had stopped, and only one body lay still. No. He wasn’t meant to die.

  Maeve watched as the energies of her curse against the bastard disbursed into the air, awakening and freeing her from the tunnels. But Kai continued to lie still as death while the bastard and his woman moved. With the barrier down, a third man entered the picture. He turned his back on Kai and laid healing hands on the woman.

  Maeve’s hands
clenched tight enough for her nails to draw blood from her palms. She shook, panted. They would die. Every single one of them would die.

  The bastard leaned over Kai and broke the chain of Maeve’s most powerful emerald, removing it from Kai’s neck. Rage blurred her vision and Maeve looked to the side, and saw her enemies in clear relief.

  Silas, with his long white wings and powerful heritage. And beside him, a mysterious cloaked figure whose demeanor bespoke a different heritage altogether.

  It was an alliance doomed to be destroyed. Maeve vowed it.

  She blinked, and the vision ended as a trap was sprung. In her fury, she almost didn’t realize it. At dizzying speeds, the information overwhelming her reversed directions, moving like a tornado out of her mind, sucking parts of her with it. As swiftly as she’d gained knowledge, she was losing it. At this rate, she’d lose all of herself before she could mount a single defense.

  Holding tight to the answer she’d come for before it was swept out on the receding tide of information, Maeve struggled to break the connection, but the trap deep in the scribe’s mind held her. Escape was impossible. Maeve couldn’t even retract her fangs.

  Losing more of herself every moment, Maeve fought frantically, finally able to at least open her eyes in panic. Just in time to watch Dugan’s battle-axe sing toward her.

  Throwing the scribe’s head from her, Maeve fell back, panting. Blood dripped from Dugan’s axe, so dark a red it was almost black in the candlelight. It mocked every drop that now tasted like acid in her mouth.

  The moans behind her rose, screeching in her ears, jarring her nerves. Fury rose in her breast as she stared at the beheaded scribe. His memories were vile. Disgusting.

  Silas and his accomplice had taken from her. Centuries of her life, gone, never to be regained. They’d left her helpless and weak. She, a Goddess, reduced to nothing more than a witless pawn while her enemies had destroyed her most precious possession. Her son.

  They’d killed her child, yet saved his bastard brother. Even now she could see Kai, handsome as the day she’d left him, his body limp and lifeless. She shouldn’t have been gone so long. That had never been her plan. She would never have purposely left him to suffer on his own. But they’d interfered. And the one who’d vowed to guard her, had betrayed her.